Photo taken by the author on an exhilarating ski day
with family at Lake Louise Ski Resort
“I know that the most joy in my life has come to me from my violin.”
Albert Einstein
What would you pick as an alternate career choice were it not for the one you currently have? I know for me, being a musician wouldn’t be on the radar, or at any point down my proverbial list of careers. I don’t even like playing an instrument (besides, of course, banging on the drums), so that option would be completely ruled out.
By Einstein admitting this (that if he weren’t a scientist, he would have been a musician), we know that, with music there is much more than meets the eye. I think if we are to understand ourselves better, music holds great insight into more of this discovery into who we are and what we love and are passionate about. There is just something there, that holds like a magical key, in being able to figure things out about ourselves, each other, and the world we live in. I don’t really know how to put this or even how to write it, other than to say that music just works. It just does and it’s this mystery of being unexplainable that further points to the idea of how powerful music really is on our conscious being. It’s like its full capacity and capabilities are multi-layered, with each layer separated by another layer of mystery, or invitation to be entered into.
“It occurred to me by intuition, and music was the driving force behind that intuition. My discovery was the result of musical perception.”
Albert Einstein
By way of an analogy, music is like a doorway awaiting to be opened. For the door to be opened it needs to have the correct key to unlock it. Once opened, a whole new world awaits the door opener. That open door, the music – that is, leads to unending places and hidden treasures awaiting to be found. It is the golden key that serves to unlock unlimited human potential, along with vast amounts of creativity and stimulation of the mind, unleashing who-knows-what kind of information, understanding, discovery’s, and pearls of wisdom.
“Creativity is contagious, pass it on.”
Albert Einstein
Music also holds true for discovering more about our world and universe. The implications here are enormous for this musical effect once it is tapped in to and explored. But we need time, lots of time, to dig around in here. Elegant sand castles aren’t just made in thirty seconds. Rather, they are the work of the master sculpterer having put in many, long hours into the overall design and concept of his creation, while painstakingly correcting and smoothing out each and every detail until it has culminated into the full expression of work and art it was intended to be.
Music is like this also. Scores of time goes into each song, accompanied by each instrumental and lyrical arrangement. This alone should give us a clue for the next time we hear a song we really like. It can serve as a reminder that a lot of time, effort, and people went into making this really terrific three-and-a-half to four minute song. This holds true not only for music, but for any type of work that is done with such skill, precision, passion, character, integrity, and excellence. Take any hobby, profession, or work of art and if it touches your heart you will then see and understand the truism of this.
Dwight Van Middlesworth 